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Monday, August 18, 2014

The Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams: Interview with Daphne Michaels

Daphne
Michaels is an author, speaker and licensed psychotherapist whose institute has
helped hundreds of women and men transform their lives through the
"gifts" every human being is born with. Daphne began her own journey
of transformation at a young age, pursued it fearlessly, and later studied
formally in the fields of social science, human services and integral
psychology. The
Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams launches both Daphne
Michaels Books and The Gifted series, whose goal it is to share with the
widest audience possible the principles that guide the Daphne Michaels
Institute. Daphne's earlier book, Light of Our Times, featured her
conversations with such international figures in the fields of spirituality and
personal development as Ram Dass, Julia Cameron, Dr. Masaru Emoto, and Thomas
Moore.

In The Gifted:
How to Live the Life of Your Dreams author, speaker and licensed
psychotherapist Daphne Michaels celebrates the nine gifts that are our
birthright, guiding

readers in how to recognize and use them to transform their
lives. In her author's preface, Michaels reveals how her own journey of
life transformation began when she was young and realized that human existence
wore two conflicting faces--one of love and joy, and one of fear and despair.
She decided then to commit her life to reconciling these two visions because
she knew that, irreconcilable though they seemed, together these two faces held
the secret to living a life of endless possibility and authentic happiness. Her
personal journey and formal education in social science, human services and
integral psychology led to the founding of the Daphne Michaels Institute, which
has helped hundreds of men and women design the lives of their dreams.

In The Gifted
Michaels shows us that the first three “gifts” we must recognize and embrace
within us if we are to re-design our lives are Awareness,Potential
and Stillness. These three allow us to identify and use the remaining
six with a life-changing power: Disharmony, Harmony, Ease, Clarity,
Freedom and Engagement. Each of these six relies on the
“essential three” for its own power to change our lives, and each has its own
gifts--its “children.” By approaching the nine gifts with real-world metaphors,
Michaels answers in easily understood ways what for many readers have been
lingering questions about personal transformation—such as how it works, what
kind of commitment it takes, and why, if we’re committed, real transformation
becomes inevitable—and addresses obstacles that readers may have encountered in
the past in trying to reach in life a happiness every human deserves.

While the human
universe’s face of love is celebrated in The Gifted, so is the face of
fear that haunted a young girl decades ago. As Michaels shows us in her book,
even Disharmony—the “quagmire” of life born of the human ego’s fear,
defenses, delusions and despair—is a gift, too, and one as important as the
others if we know how to see it clearly and use it. Once we understand
Disharmony, we are ready to understand the real purpose of Harmony in our
lives. Disharmony does not need to rule us. It is ours to use as we
design the lives of our dreams.

The final gift in The
Gifted, Michaels tells us, is the gift of Engagement.
Engagement—with the universe and with ourselves—allows us to use all of the
other gifts with more power and joy than we ever imagined possible.

That mountaintop
decision never left me. It drove my life’s work and over the years led me to
understand that there are gifts – nine of them, in fact – that we are all born
with but rarely experience in their full glory and potential. These gifts
– which make each and every one of us “The Gifted” of this book’s title – are
the keys to living lives of endless possibilities and, in turn, achieving an
authentic happiness that cannot be lost. They are, in other words, the
keys to achieving the life of our dreams.

Thank
you for this interview!I’d like to know more about you
as a person first.What do you do when
you’re not
writing?

Thank
you for asking. I have a very busy life. My time is shared between my
writing,institute, private practice and
thirteen year old son. I like to manage my time really well. Every moment
counts.

When
did you start writing?

While I have been writing since I was an
adolescent, I began to write professionally about fifteen years ago.

As
a published author, what would you say was the most pivotal point of your
writing life?

There
is a huge difference between being a writer and a being a published author.
Writing is an art and skill and publishing is a business. These are two
completely different mindsets and it was a pivotal point for me to discover how
to do both in a way that would both express and honor my message.

If
you could go anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would
that be and why?

That
is a really tough question, especially since where we write affects what we
write. It would have to be a place that inspires my muse.Fiji comes to mind at the moment.

If
you had 4 hours of extra time today, what would you do?

Sleep!
I’m getting
ready to launch The Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams at the
International Book Expo - America in New York next week and I must admit that I’ve been burning the candle at
both ends to get ready!

Where
would you like to set a story that you haven’t done yet?

Interestingly,
even though I write non-fiction, this question still applies in a certain way.
The “story” for non-fiction writers is often
the reality within reach that we are pointing to and encouraging our readers to
discover — such as a trip in a travel magazine or an interesting piece of
history. As a personal development writer, I am interested in setting the
“story” in my readers lives. My theme is to show readers how truly gifted we
all are and how by using our gifts we can transform our lives.

Back
to your present book, The Gifted: How to Live the Life ofYour Dreams, how did you publish it?

I
chose to launch the Daphne Michaels Books imprint. It is great to be launching
my imprint in an era where POD publishing and ebook publishing helps one reach
an even larger audience … and
it’s nice,
too, that this is the first year Book Expo America has invited self-published
authors to exhibit and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY and other venues are featuring the
best self-published books. Being part of this new era in publishing allows
opportunities to help shape it. This means teaming in new ways with new people
and being free to see our projects all the way from conception to publication
and beyond.

In writing your book, did you travel
anywhere for research?

Only through the lands of potential and
possibility!

Why
was writing The Gifted: How to Live the Life of Your Dreams so important to
you?

I
have worked with men and women of all backgrounds and personalities for over
twenty-five years, guiding them to live the lives of their dreams. In addition
to having a long-term psychotherapy practice, my institute offers
transformational programs for people interested in living lives of endless
possibility.

My
own journey, which led me to eventually write this book, started when I was an
angst-ridden adolescent. I smile today, because it was such a dramatic time in
my life with classic teenage experiences. And even this was classic I’m sure, although I am still
shaken today when I think of the first time I really saw the world
beyond my limited scope of experience. I was devastated by what I experienced
as a gut-wrenching discovery of two worlds existing side by side: the world
of love and the world of despair. It was the world of despair - the fear
and misery that I witnessed robbing people of the beauty in life — that
propelled my journey to understand and help eradicate unnecessary suffering.

My
personal journey took years and led to all sorts of experiences for which I am
grateful today. Writing personal development books is a natural next step in my
journey to take my message to as broad of an audience as possible.

Where
do you get your best ideas and why do you think that is?

My
best ideas come from a connection that I feel with the universe. Many writers
and poets speak of this. There is a sense of otherness in my writing. A sense
that a am the messenger, but the message is much bigger than me.

Any
final words?

Those
of us who feel called to share a message - a how to, inspiration, biography,
humor, or guidance, or to tell a story - have an important role in life.
Celebrate it! Make developing and sharing your message a priority because it
truly is a gift to your readers!